This is an adapted excerpt from the Jan. 13 episode of “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”
Just before Donald Trump took the stage on Tuesday at the Detroit Economic Club, where he gave a speech touting his economic policies and insisting that affordability was a “fake word” invented by Democrats, The New York Times published this headline: “Initial Obamacare Enrollment Drops by 1.4 Million.”
Now, the word “initial” is key in there, because that number is expected to only get worse, not better.
You see, that 1.4 million is made up of people who were well-informed enough to have preemptively opted out of their new higher premiums.
Those Americans made the brutal decision to forgo health care coverage due to their premium costs skyrocketing, literally doubling on average, after Trump and Republicans refused to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies last year.
But a lot of ACA enrollees have plans that automatically renew, so many have not received their first bill and may not yet know how much higher their new premium will be.
When they get their first bill — and the sticker shock hits — the number of Americans that Trump and Republicans will have effectively just priced out of health insurance is expected to rise dramatically.
Now, who could have predicted that? Well, just about everyone did.
Last year, policy experts and Democrats were jumping up and down, shouting about it for months. But Republicans in Congress allowed health care subsidies to lapse anyway, and now millions of Americans are facing skyrocketing increases.
Which brings us back to Trump’s speech on Tuesday at the Detroit Economic Club. During his remarks, the president turned to something else he wants to get rid of: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
As Trump put it, “That jerk will be gone soon.”
The Fed is independent, and Trump can’t actually unilaterally get rid of Powell. But earlier this week, we learned that the Justice Department has opened an unprecedented criminal investigation into the chair. The Trump administration has accused Powell of allegedly misrepresenting the costs of renovations to the central bank’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. The investigation appears to be part of an effort to intimidate the chair out of his job, all because Trump is upset that Powell is refusing to change interest rates willy-nilly at his command. So again we find ourselves in a position where economists and policy experts, leaders on Wall Street and Democrats — who don’t often agree on much — are jumping up and down, warning about just how catastrophic for our economy it would be if Trump destroyed the independence of the Fed and politicized interest rates. But Trump seems to be angling for just that. For him, it’s full steam ahead. Allison Detzel contributed.
Jen Psaki is the host of "The Briefing with Jen Psaki" airing Tuesdays through Fridays at 9 p.m. EST. She is the former White House press secretary for President Joe Biden. Recommended
